


every snowflake is different just like you

by adverbialstarlight



Series: voltron bingo stuff [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sports, Co-workers, Competition, Ice Skating, M/M, idk what this became, it had a planned plot but time said fuck you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-04 23:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adverbialstarlight/pseuds/adverbialstarlight
Summary: Keith works for an ice skating lesson business, and cute guys keep trying to one up his skating while he's working. Well, actually the same guy.aka i remembered i had to finish voltron bingo stuff but couldn't fully write this one so this is what we got rip





	every snowflake is different just like you

**Author's Note:**

> did i actually title another fic after a random mcr song? yeah i did, too bad. this was for my voltron bingo fills instructor au for my au card and competition for my klance card. enjoy.
> 
> *unbetaed/edited please excuse any mistakes!

“Oh hell no.”

“Come on, Keith, please? I’m not even making you teach the  _ little  _ kids,” Shiro said with a frown, part stern boss and part whining older brother that Keith never had. “And it isn’t like you’ll be alone in it so even if things  _ do _ go south there’ll be someone to hopefully save your ass.”

Keith scowled, unaffected. “This is a terrible idea, why do I have to do it anyway?” he replied, crossing his arms. The last time that Shiro had made him teach a class at the lake had not gone very well. How Keith had pretty much abandoned his actual instructor duties to instead race a guy around the lake at top speed was something that no one would allow Keith to forget. It had been over a year ago and still Shiro refused to let him forget it.

The boy had been about the same age as him, the uncle or whatever of one of the actual kids signed up to get skating lessons, and a complete dick. If it weren’t for his loud, cocky personality, Keith might’ve even dared to call him  _ cute _ . That was all ruined, of course, when he said that he could skate better than Keith and challenged him to a race around the lake.

It was still early December, and though Evergreen Lake was rather quick to freeze, there were still some parts that the owners had explicitly told them  _ not  _ to let people. There was bright orange cones and everything. And yet, in their four laps the two teenagers had completely disregarded those, expertly weaving through each cone as they threw elbows in attempt to knock the other over.

Any other time Keith would have been more cautious, but there was something about this boy that seemed to just irritate him and throw all rules and morals to the wind. Which is how he also ended up practically jumping over a little girl who was maybe four years old after she fell straight into his path. The boy was getting farther ahead of him, and he had turned around to stick his tongue out at Keith as he weaved through more throngs of people. Keith had not thought, he just picked up speed and prayed for the best as his momentum carried him to the other side of the crying toddler. There would be time to feel bad about that later.

Keith had won the race that day, but he had also won a thorough scolding from Allura, who owned Voltron Skates, the small business Keith worked for that provided ice skating lessons.

“Keith,” she had said, waving her hands. There were several packets of paper in one of them, a paper to-go cup of hot chocolate in the other. “What in the goddamn world were you doing? We give ice skating lessons not run an ice roller derby! That child could’ve been seriously hurt. You know how bad that would be for us, for  _ you _ . I would love to suspend you from working—”

“Wow, thanks,” Keith muttered under his breath.

“—however this is the busiest time for the lake and we need all the staff here as possible. Please consider this a warning, and next time just do your job,” Allura finished, ignoring the comment. Keith opened his mouth to thank her, but then she continued. “I do not care how obnoxious or cute or whatever your students might be, you are here for a reason, Keith.”

To say the least, he had not taught another class after that one. It was too humiliating to try again, even if no one had fallen into the lake or gotten their fingers cut off by the blades of Keith’s skates.

He hadn’t that is, until now.

“Keith, I know that the last class you taught didn’t end so well, but this is your chance to do better,” Shiro said. He was using his life seminar voice, the one where he became more of a philosophical counselor than friend. As helpful as they were, Keith was not in the mood. He sighed again.

“All you’re going to be doing is show the new guy how everything works at Voltron, give him some pointers if a kid asks weird personal questions and whatever. You don’t even have to talk to them that much and Lance is a great guy. If Allura didn’t trust you then she would not have asked me to ask you to do this.”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “No she’s asking me to do this because we’re understaffed,” he stated.

“That’s not— well… okay,  _ maybe _ ,” Shiro said sheepishly. Keith snorted. “But Romelle can’t do it, you know how she is, and since it’s a holiday weekend no one else wants to come in, damn teenagers. Just  _ please  _ do it? It’ll all go fine, everyone will forget the whole ice derby fiasco, and you’ll get a free hot chocolate afterwards for helping out the newbie.”

Finally Keith turned away from his friend’s puppy dog look, rolling his eyes. Fuck it, it couldn’t end up too bad, right? It was a one class thing. “Alright, fine. Whatever. Can’t promise that this won’t be a complete disaster but just remember this was your idea.”

Shiro’s eyes lit up and his shoulders relaxed. Keith realized then just how completely and utterly exhausted he was right now— the grateful smile he gave Keith was one that should be aimed at Jesus himself. It was a bit alarming. Keith made a note to ask Shiro about his sleeping schedule sometime soon. As understaffed as Voltron was right now, there was no way that Shiro was  _ that  _ relieved to not have to train this new person.

Normally Shiro was the one to supervise new workers, rare as those were. Contrary to his large, intimidating appearance, he was probably the most friendly and patient one on the team. Even though Keith had not been the greatest during his own training, Shiro had put up with him, letting Keith grow into the excellent skater he was today.

It had been one of his favorite parts of the job, and the fact that he was having Keith do it was odd. Keith had seen him hacking up his goddamn lungs with pneumonia once and still come to work before.

“Oh god, thank you  _ so  _ much, Keith,” Shiro said, placing his hands on Keith’s shoulders. “I will buy you a coffee tomorrow morning, yeah? By the way, he’s stopping by around two, you’ll be able to meet him then. I think you two will get along fine and besides, he can’t be too bad of a person. Allura herself did his interview.”

And with that Shiro walked out of the cabin and into the parking lot, waving a bit as he pushed open the doors. Keith remained standing there for a moment and stared as the Subaru pulled out of the lot.

He pulled his phone out of the pocket of his dark red parka, squinting at the dim screen for the time. It was almost noon, leaving Keith an hour or so for lunch before he had to find this new guy— Lane, or something Shiro had called him.

Normally this was Keith’s forty minute lunch break. He facilitated the small ice hockey games that happened in one of the thinner areas of the lake, something else that Voltron provided. There was another game scheduled every two hours so this would be the time Keith sat in the back room with a piece of pizza and scrolled through his phone for a few minutes before going back out to be ready to rescue a kid from falling in the ice or getting hit with a hockey stick.

There was time to kill today though, so instead of plopping his ass onto the couch when he came into the room, Keith shed his coat and picked up his skates.

The leather was soft after so many years of use, and he had replaced the laces at least sixty times, but there was something that Keith liked about these skates, and whenever he was allowed to idly skate around the lake— there were specific skates that they all had to use when on job, something about a sponsor or whatever, though the only reason people looked at Keith’s skates then was because they were bright red— these were the ones he wore. They had been a gift sent from his mother when he’d turned sixteen, sent in a plain cardboard box with a small note signed by a woman named Krolia that wished him a happy birthday. He had still been bitter about her absence then, and still Keith could never bring himself to use any other skates when given the choice.

Being in the middle of the mountains in one of the coldest months of winter and right next to a large lake meant that the average temperature was about -6°. To say the least, Keith was instantly missing his warm parka when he stepped onto the cabin deck, carefully making his way down the steps and towards the lake. He still wore a black fleece and hoodie, his hands slightly warned by his gloves, but that made it no less freezing.

Most of the people looked at him with confused, incredulous looks from behind the large collars of their own winter coats. If he were in their place, Keith probably would have done the same. But as painful as the cold was initially when he came out, Keith reminded himself that after a few minutes he’d just be shedding the layers anyway.

When people were slowly scooting across the ice in circles like most people came to do— really, it was the only thing you could do with toddlers, the main age group that visited the lake— warming up was not something that happened. When you skated around the lake at high speeds like Keith did though, it only took a few moments to start sweating.

And so Keith braved the chill, inhaling deeply and relishing the crisp smell after sitting inside the cabin for so long this morning. The moment that the blade of his skate hit the ice, he was off.

Skaters moved out of Keith’s path, some muttering in surprise as he raced past them, scarcely avoiding collision and only leaving a cold rush of air. This was something that he would never tire of, the thrill and adrenaline that came with each risque maneuver, the balance, the coldness of the wind biting at his skin as he went in laps around the lake. If he closed his eyes, Keith could almost imagine that he was flying.

And then there was someone right next to him, matching Keith’s pace almost perfectly. He glanced over to see a brunet boy in a bright knitted cap grinning at him sharply. Keith nearly missed the next turn as he blinked in surprise. Where the hell had this guy come from?

He leaned to the side and cleanly steered away from the bank of snow, facing back in front of him. There was something about that smile that made Keith’s insides twist in irritation, something almost mocking in it. Alright, fine.

Keith had always been one to rise a bit too easily to a challenge, especially in something that was important to him. Who cared if this became another disastrous ice derby with another definitely-not-cute stranger who provoked Keith to not do his job? Technically he was on lunch break right now anyway. If he wasn’t on the job, Shiro couldn’t admonish him, it was a win-win situation.

As they approached the next curve, Keith let himself get only centimeters away from the bank before leaning to the side and smoothly turning with the lake. He sped up once it was more straight then, feet moving in a pattern probably a bit more complicated than necessary. Beside him there was an irritated huff, and his adversary skated ahead a bit, turning to face Keith as he glided between people without a glance behind him. When they got to one of the larger cracks, he spun around and leaped over it before meeting Keith’s eyes again, as if to say,  _ try and top that. _

They soon fell into a rhythm of loops and salchows around the lake, muttering small jabs when the other would stumble or almost hit an innocent bystander. Keith had to admit, he was against a rather talented skater, someone confident in his maneuvers and enthusiastic about the sport, and it was actually becoming kind of fun. He had to work to keep up, but the added on challenge only pushed him more.

Eventually though, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Without even looking at it, he knew exactly what it was for. Keith sped up and stopped before the steps, already missing his skates as he stepped off the ice and started towards the main cabin. He didn’t even look back to the boy still standing on the ice behind him who wore a look of surprise and confusion.

Usually these lessons lasted only two hours at most but Keith wanted to at least partially defrost his fingers before going back out. Hopefully this Lane or Laith guy— he’d have to ask Allura for his name again— would just follow Keith’s direction and stand back. A non difficult trainee wasn’t too much to ask for, right?

At 2:07, Keith was proven wrong. So, so very wrong. The class was three minutes from starting, six preteens were already there, but Lace had yet to show up. But then Keith looked up from checking number seven in and there he was. It was the same boy from earlier who had tried to make ice skating into some weird Olympics-esque competition.

He wanted to say something actually relevant to now— that he was late, that he better be ready and should have been wearing the skates with the Voltron Skates logo on them. Instead his brain seemed to stop cooperating with his mouth, and what came out was, “Who are you?”

When he slammed his head into the table later over this, Keith would blame it on reciting the line over and over again to the students in the past ten or so minutes.

“Dude. Are you kidding?” the boy asked, incredulous. “We’ve met like… twice now. Are you actually serious, like you’ve never seen me before in your life.”

Keith did not have time for this. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please just tell me if you’re here to learn how to skate or if you’re the tardy trainee Shiro said would be here like ten minutes ago.”

He scoffed and pulled out a small neon piece of paper, instructions scrawled in loopy handwriting with a note at the bottom that said “Keith be polite.” It was undoubtedly Shiro’s, there was the small Voltron Skates  _ V  _ next to his name and everything. “Yeah, I’m Lance. You’re the dude that’s supposed to be monitoring me today, then. Of course it’s the mullet.”

Ignoring him, Keith put a checkmark beside Lance’s name and scanned the list again before skimming over their group. Everyone was here now, good. He cleared his throat and began on introducing himself, Voltron Skates, and what they’d be working on.

It had been a while since he’d last done this and yet Keith still remembered the entire spiel perfectly. And if he had glanced over what he had written down in his phone notes on what he was supposed to say for talking about himself, no one would know.

Through it, Lance grinned, kicking up snow and mouthing the words along with Keith with an awful pantomime. Keith rolled his eyes, shooting him a look.

“And this fiend is Lance,” Keith said, ignoring the indignant squeak from Lance, “he’s going to be shadowing me today but if you need help he’ll definitely help you. You guys all ready to skate? Make sure your skates are snug and you’ve got gloves on, it can get kind of cold out here and I don’t want to be at fault for any of you getting frostbite. Let’s go.”

He turned and began to plot to the ice, the students following behind him, giggling. It had felt extremely awkward, but at least they thought he was being humorous. It was better than thinking there was a huge stick up his ass.

Lance caught up with Keith’s strides easily and flicked his ear. “Fiend? Really? I’d like to think of myself more as a  _ sentient being. _ Anyway, what’s the plan here, we just doing duck squats and whatnot?”

“You’d have known if you showed up at two,” Keith replied smoothly, stepping onto the ice and turning to face the kids. A few of them looked a bit hesitant to get on, eyeing the lake with disdain. “The ice is really thick right now, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Keith said. He looked directly at one boy as he said it, continuing with, “they wouldn’t let us on here if there was a chance for you to fall through— they do tests for that stuff. Also it’s freezing out here so your best bet right now is to move around. We’re gonna do a few loops around the lake first.”

That luckily got the rest of them to step on, if a bit unsteadily and Keith nodded, leading them towards the edge of the lake and turning so he could see them. Lance was back next to him, an obnoxious grin on his lips.

“First one to that cone wins,” he said mischievously, skating in closer to Keith. 

“We’re not doing that,” Keith said. He rolled his eyes, not replying, but Lance didn’t miss how he sped up a bit and grinned wider.

“C’mon, you scared?”

Suddenly Keith remembered. A lesson similar to this one, with smaller children. A young girl with dark brown hair and an obnoxious guardian. Racing through the mass of skaters and trying to knock over a boy with a matching grin to the one now.

Keith couldn’t be entirely convinced that this was just a coincidence. The universe was testing him, and unfortunately he was falling for it. He had never been one to turn down a challenge.

He met Lance’s eyes again, eyebrow raised. “Let’s see how you teach first, then we’ll talk.”

**Author's Note:**

> i wish that i could've done my full plan for this but sometimes time be shitty. anyway i hope it was fine anyway i have approximately 5 minutes left so i won't write an essay here for today, but yeah hope that was ok thanks for reading have a great day/night/whatever leave a comment or kudos or just click on this to make me cry and bye
> 
> [tumblr](https://adverbialstarlight.tumblr.com)  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/adverbialnouns)


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